As always (or at least the last 36 years), Spider Robinson's book, "The Web Between the Worlds", is quite enlightening. Short story for the threat risk: any cable "above" the break will shoot off into space, hauled by the counterweight which will be above geosynchronous orbit. So if terrorists (it's always about the terrorists, right?) want to do any real earthside damage, they have to sever to cable higher than the nearest landmass to the west (I think), given that it actually falls flat against the ground. And another point brought up in the book, the best security for a space elevator is another space elevator. Since they drop the cost to orbit by so much, subsequent elevators are almost free (okay, more like 90% off).
For other futuristic (at the time) writing, see Arthur C. Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise".
There is already a framework in place to make sure that names don't overlap in the public consciousness: Trademarks. If they can actually get a trademark on the word "twisted", and have it apply to anything other than the film/entertainment industry, then they can sue them under copyright law or trademark law, whichever is applicable. But you can rarely get a trademark on a generic term, in any field, let alone all of them (Windows is a notable exception). And again, if they aren't breaking a law, I do't see why we should prohibit people from being stupid (irrelevant and misleading names). They'll pay the penalty, or reap the reward, of their name choice. After all, what does kleenix mean? Not much, until a certain brand of facial tissue began to get widespread market support.
Exceptions are good for pointing out potential flaws, especially for grand, sweeping statements. But just because Ulysses is harder to read than Last of the Mohicans doesn't mean that it isn't hard to read. Nor does it account for all the other points the grandparent made. Nor does it account for the propensity of people to buy books in order to appear intelligent, rather than for the purpose of reading, when their income is sufficiently high, which is more likely the case now that it was about two centuries ago.
And I'm sorry for my assumptions. Many/.ers make (at least superficially) anti-religious remarks without knowing what they're talking about. I'll try to be a little less rabid next time.
Where's the MGM profits going to? Bankrolling sequels to "Legally Blonde"? Yeah, Lucas really bilks us cinema fans alright.
Come now. At least "Legally Blonde" has some interest value if you play segments of the movie in mute. Even that doesn't add value to any scene with JarJar in it.
not 4000-year old policies promulgated in middle-eastern nomadic herding societies
If you're making reference to Judeo-Christian laws, I think you'd better do a little more research.
The Hebrews were one of the first races to promote literacy and education. By 13, you had to be able to read, or memorize historical texts, and explain the deeper issues involved, in order to be considered an adult. They had one of the first written languages which didn't have a word-to symbol relation (I believe it's called a semantic language).
The Hebrew law forbade bribery of it's officials, which may not have stopped it from happening, but was leaps and bounds beyond any contemporary society (and something our current society could learn from).
The Hebrew law had a concept of personal responsibility, in everything from census (everyone paid the same amount during census-taking, regardless of social status) to property (owners were held responsible for the acts of their animals, if they had prior incidents to show their propensities - think of all the serial dog attacks, and how reasonable that seems).
Now, the penalties may have been more harsh than we'd like to see in modern times, but we have better resources to both know what some of the sources for some of these crimes are, to better methods for rehabilitating them. But the Hebrew system was both more consistent and more balanced than most other ancient cultures, which tended to follow the Golden Rule - whoever has the gold rules.
There have also been studies showing dog companionship actually lowers the blood pressure of seniors.
Yep, if I got a dog now, by the time I was a senior my blood pressure would lower. Of course, that would be after I finish digging the hole to drop it in...
Hell, I'd rather deal with the thieves, and I've had both (dogs and thieves).
My mom had a selectric back in the day, and may still have it kicking around. It was probably bought about the time this whole fiasco was occuring. I seem to recall that it did proportional spacing, and had the th symbol, but it's been a long time (I mean, come on, who on/. has used a typewriter in the last 10 years?). It was definitely the golf ball style. I remember popping that thing off just for fun, and probably screwing up the adjustments in the process.
I'll have to check it out, and post any corrections here, if she still has it lying around.
That may be the case here, but not elsewhere. There's a lady in Canada who has made some real advances in learning. Of course, she had a great test subject - herself. And then she started a school using her newfound knowledge. The school is for people with mental disabilities, but there should be little reason that the trend couldn't be advanced beyond whatever passes for normal. Her work clearly shows that the baseline isn't necessarily the maximum.
Also, you're assuming that the state of things in the U.S. public school system is the state of things everywhere, and that the practical use of our knowledge is going to drive our research into how people learn (and think). Someone else in this article already mentioned the Montesorri(?) schools, and there are other private schools elsewhere using something other than the standard curriculum. And neuroscientists are studying our brain in ways that weren't even dreamed of a century ago. And even in the U.S., that research is being funded. So changes will come, some of them positive, and if the mainstream schools won't use them, other ones will.
As an aside, the free market doesn't always bring true innovation. Most theoretical research has too long-term a payout, and private industry doesn't seem to take as many chances like that any more. And I personally don't consider government-funded research free-market.
Yes, and so is the concept of the atom. And yet, we still learn new things about them every day.
Any practical science is going to have improvements as time goes by, to an almost unlimited degree. Until we have a complete understanding of the theoretical sciences, and for a while after that, this won't stop. The wheel has surely been around longer than any formal schools, and yet we still see advances. Do you think teaching/learning methods are somehow immune to technological advancement?
Clearly there are a number of uninformed people with mod points today.
The best way to learn to be something is to observe and emulate that which you wish to be. A fair number of sociologists have stated that the most important part of socialisation of children is from their interaction with their parents. There are a lot of opinions on this subject, but this is not a fringe opinion.
This seems obvious, but can be missed when it opposes a common opinion, not unlike whether the earth revolved around the sun, or vice versa. This is the flow of the entire parent post (with the exception of the last statement), which I will enumerate.
Children should be with their parents and extended family. Having transient adult figures isn't the way to be raised.
If you want your kids to be like you, they have to know what you are like. This requires spending time with them, and letting your values show through.
Children shouldn't spend all day with their human contact being dominated by others of exactly the same age. A child should have contact with a wide range of age groups.
The goal of any parent should be to raise healthy, well-adjusted adults. Again, on the premise of emulation, that will not occur if the majority of their formative years (not counting sleeping time) are spent with something other than adults.
Children should be being taught by example.
I can't put it any more succinctly, but will add this. Adults learn through emulation, as well. Much of our learning is through texts/instruction, but most technical careers, and just about all less technical careers (manual labour, service industry, etc.) use a mentoring/apprenticeship element in some part of the training (in medicine, it's called residency). Why would children be different?
Children should learn the values needed to want to learn and understand the reasons why they should.
This is a concept that is beyond most children without seeing it somewhere else first. Sometimes delaying gratification has its benefits. This will be shown in a number of areas, such as a person's work ethic, how much they are willing to save, their desire to keep fit, and more. You will rarely learn this from your peers, and school puts almost no focus on this (beyond the technical elements).
To dismiss this out of hand is a clear indicator that no thought has been put into this topic.
Note the phrase "most advanced". I don't know if Prussia qualified.
There's also the issue of then and now. Holding onto a century-plus system with no regard of advances elsewhere is bound to have a huge number of flaws.
Exactly which crime did the programmer from Elcomsoft commit in the United States? He did his job in Russia, breaking "encryption" on software that was produced in the U.S. (which should have no bearing whatsoever). Yet he was arrested for those "crimes", and had to go through trial (with various twists and turns after that). All for stuff which was perfectly legal where he did it.
Canada has similar laws, but only regarding their citizens. If a Canadian is found to have sex with a minor in a foreign country, they can be charged in Canada. On the plus side, they only inflict this absurdity on their own citizens. So Canadians only have to worry about three sets of laws at a given time - Canadian, American, and the local laws of wherever they are. And hope they never contradict.
[rant] Let's be honest. Humans aren't really expensive, or fragile. They're self-repairing, have long work cycles, low-maintenance, self-replicating, energy-efficient, highly adaptable, and capable of innovation. We also have a huge supply, and the capability to compensate for our shortcomings, with preparation. The only things robots currently have over people is cheap and precise reproduction, and precise and repeatable actions. But it doesn't take much to ruin a robot, get some grit in a high-precision joint, and guess what it takes to fix it? Manned service or replacement. Last time I heard, we don't currently have the technology to build the pyramids, yet manpower did it really well three times over (and not quite as well a few other times). [/rant]
Now I understand perfectly well that there is an intangible value in humans, which is much higher than either the tangible or intangible value of our current robots. I'm also aware that that intrinsic value has been ignored in the past to make great achievements, tainting them in the process. But accepting that in many cases, humans are the best tool for the job, and accepting and honouring those who wish to volunteer, and risk their lives, to further our goals is not a bad thing.
Other than that, I agree with pretty much everything you said.
And at night, when the tank cools down, you can generate energy again, from the air going in the opposite direction. This system generates energy in much the same way as a stirling engine does - moving heat to generate kinetic energy vs. moving air to generate electric energy.
I haven't read the article (I'm not that new here), but if there was an issue with the direction of flow, a simple system with 2 bi-directional valves and a little extra pipe could guarantee the gas flowed in a given direction that section of pipe, regardless of which tank was the source and which was the destination.
One of the biggest flaws of open source is that a boycott can't be easily accomplished. Unless the product you're providing is big enough to have name recognition (MySQL), but not so big that there are multiple implementations (Linux), the odds are that someone will provide the proprietary codec, if possible. This is what the consumer wants (variety, choice), even if it isn't best for them (some degree of loss of rights). And if it isn't possible to include the codec, it's not much of a boycott.
Notig that women are different than men is not prejudice. It is not prejudice (or, more correctly, discrimination) for me to say that North American aboriginals are likelier to become alcoholics than the general population. It is not discrimination to say the men are generally stronger than women. And it's not discrimination to say that women are generally more empathic than men. So why would it be surprising if someone cautioned any North American aboriginal against drinking (until a test is made to determine alcoholism susecptibility), or wrong to require female firefighters to meet the same standards as men, or to be surprised that women in a management role would be more able to identify with their staff, and have a better insight into their needs.
Not surprisingly, all the above are generalisations, and doubtless have exceptions. Although I haven't met an aboriginal who holds his liquor well, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some (I know aboriginals, just none who drink that I wouldn't classify as alcoholic). Certainly I've met women who are stronger than your typical male (and the olympics are a great oppotunity to learn of more), as well as men who are weaker than the typical woman. And I've also seen the same thing wrt to empathy. Which still does nothing to change what statistics will show.
And there's the crux of the argument. If something is so good, people will pay to have a high-grade copy for their personal collection and further enjoyment. The key word in the above statement, which the media creators well know, is good. This is clearly what scares them. If they could have free advertising (a major expense nowadays) for their product, and a fair expectation of consumer buy-in, why would they resist it. The only reasonable answer I've been able to find is that they want to sell us crap. Crap is always easier to make, no matter how hard we think they must try to ruin a good concept. But if everyone can know it's crap, they lose even on the smaller amount they spend to produce that crap. Hence, every effort is made to hide the fact that the product is crap, such as the advertising for Toys and Gigli. If we can view the product before purchasing it (and this is especially true for movies, where the initial sale is behind closed doors) we may not pay for the subpar material that is produced, raising the bar, and the effort, for the media creators.
And who really likes it when they are told that their job just got harder, with probably the same payout?
Re:In general, Microsoft seems sloppy.
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Well, like the Good Book says, it's all been done before. What it doesn't say is, MS makes it easy.
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As always (or at least the last 36 years), Spider Robinson's book, "The Web Between the Worlds", is quite enlightening. Short story for the threat risk: any cable "above" the break will shoot off into space, hauled by the counterweight which will be above geosynchronous orbit. So if terrorists (it's always about the terrorists, right?) want to do any real earthside damage, they have to sever to cable higher than the nearest landmass to the west (I think), given that it actually falls flat against the ground. And another point brought up in the book, the best security for a space elevator is another space elevator. Since they drop the cost to orbit by so much, subsequent elevators are almost free (okay, more like 90% off).
For other futuristic (at the time) writing, see Arthur C. Clarke's "Fountains of Paradise".
There is already a framework in place to make sure that names don't overlap in the public consciousness: Trademarks. If they can actually get a trademark on the word "twisted", and have it apply to anything other than the film/entertainment industry, then they can sue them under copyright law or trademark law, whichever is applicable. But you can rarely get a trademark on a generic term, in any field, let alone all of them (Windows is a notable exception). And again, if they aren't breaking a law, I do't see why we should prohibit people from being stupid (irrelevant and misleading names). They'll pay the penalty, or reap the reward, of their name choice. After all, what does kleenix mean? Not much, until a certain brand of facial tissue began to get widespread market support.
Exceptions are good for pointing out potential flaws, especially for grand, sweeping statements. But just because Ulysses is harder to read than Last of the Mohicans doesn't mean that it isn't hard to read. Nor does it account for all the other points the grandparent made. Nor does it account for the propensity of people to buy books in order to appear intelligent, rather than for the purpose of reading, when their income is sufficiently high, which is more likely the case now that it was about two centuries ago.
...it's only $1 Million for the first chip. All the other chips cost about 35 cents. Assuming it works, of course.
And I'm sorry for my assumptions. Many /.ers make (at least superficially) anti-religious remarks without knowing what they're talking about. I'll try to be a little less rabid next time.
And if it happened twice, you'd be as surprised as the scientists watching those probes.
Where's the MGM profits going to? Bankrolling sequels to "Legally Blonde"? Yeah, Lucas really bilks us cinema fans alright.
Come now. At least "Legally Blonde" has some interest value if you play segments of the movie in mute. Even that doesn't add value to any scene with JarJar in it.
not 4000-year old policies promulgated in middle-eastern nomadic herding societies
If you're making reference to Judeo-Christian laws, I think you'd better do a little more research.
The Hebrews were one of the first races to promote literacy and education. By 13, you had to be able to read, or memorize historical texts, and explain the deeper issues involved, in order to be considered an adult. They had one of the first written languages which didn't have a word-to symbol relation (I believe it's called a semantic language).
The Hebrew law forbade bribery of it's officials, which may not have stopped it from happening, but was leaps and bounds beyond any contemporary society (and something our current society could learn from).
The Hebrew law had a concept of personal responsibility, in everything from census (everyone paid the same amount during census-taking, regardless of social status) to property (owners were held responsible for the acts of their animals, if they had prior incidents to show their propensities - think of all the serial dog attacks, and how reasonable that seems).
Now, the penalties may have been more harsh than we'd like to see in modern times, but we have better resources to both know what some of the sources for some of these crimes are, to better methods for rehabilitating them. But the Hebrew system was both more consistent and more balanced than most other ancient cultures, which tended to follow the Golden Rule - whoever has the gold rules.
There have also been studies showing dog companionship actually lowers the blood pressure of seniors.
Yep, if I got a dog now, by the time I was a senior my blood pressure would lower. Of course, that would be after I finish digging the hole to drop it in...
Hell, I'd rather deal with the thieves, and I've had both (dogs and thieves).
My mom had a selectric back in the day, and may still have it kicking around. It was probably bought about the time this whole fiasco was occuring. I seem to recall that it did proportional spacing, and had the th symbol, but it's been a long time (I mean, come on, who on /. has used a typewriter in the last 10 years?). It was definitely the golf ball style. I remember popping that thing off just for fun, and probably screwing up the adjustments in the process.
I'll have to check it out, and post any corrections here, if she still has it lying around.
That may be the case here, but not elsewhere. There's a lady in Canada who has made some real advances in learning. Of course, she had a great test subject - herself. And then she started a school using her newfound knowledge. The school is for people with mental disabilities, but there should be little reason that the trend couldn't be advanced beyond whatever passes for normal. Her work clearly shows that the baseline isn't necessarily the maximum.
Also, you're assuming that the state of things in the U.S. public school system is the state of things everywhere, and that the practical use of our knowledge is going to drive our research into how people learn (and think). Someone else in this article already mentioned the Montesorri(?) schools, and there are other private schools elsewhere using something other than the standard curriculum. And neuroscientists are studying our brain in ways that weren't even dreamed of a century ago. And even in the U.S., that research is being funded. So changes will come, some of them positive, and if the mainstream schools won't use them, other ones will.
As an aside, the free market doesn't always bring true innovation. Most theoretical research has too long-term a payout, and private industry doesn't seem to take as many chances like that any more. And I personally don't consider government-funded research free-market.
Yes, and so is the concept of the atom. And yet, we still learn new things about them every day.
Any practical science is going to have improvements as time goes by, to an almost unlimited degree. Until we have a complete understanding of the theoretical sciences, and for a while after that, this won't stop. The wheel has surely been around longer than any formal schools, and yet we still see advances. Do you think teaching/learning methods are somehow immune to technological advancement?
Please excuse my abuse of the tired joke, but...
In Soviet Russia, even the criminals are free!
In the United States, only the criminals are free!
Clearly there are a number of uninformed people with mod points today.
The best way to learn to be something is to observe and emulate that which you wish to be. A fair number of sociologists have stated that the most important part of socialisation of children is from their interaction with their parents. There are a lot of opinions on this subject, but this is not a fringe opinion.
This seems obvious, but can be missed when it opposes a common opinion, not unlike whether the earth revolved around the sun, or vice versa. This is the flow of the entire parent post (with the exception of the last statement), which I will enumerate.
Children should be with their parents and extended family. Having transient adult figures isn't the way to be raised.
If you want your kids to be like you, they have to know what you are like. This requires spending time with them, and letting your values show through.
Children shouldn't spend all day with their human contact being dominated by others of exactly the same age. A child should have contact with a wide range of age groups.
The goal of any parent should be to raise healthy, well-adjusted adults. Again, on the premise of emulation, that will not occur if the majority of their formative years (not counting sleeping time) are spent with something other than adults.
Children should be being taught by example.
I can't put it any more succinctly, but will add this. Adults learn through emulation, as well. Much of our learning is through texts/instruction, but most technical careers, and just about all less technical careers (manual labour, service industry, etc.) use a mentoring/apprenticeship element in some part of the training (in medicine, it's called residency). Why would children be different?
Children should learn the values needed to want to learn and understand the reasons why they should.
This is a concept that is beyond most children without seeing it somewhere else first. Sometimes delaying gratification has its benefits. This will be shown in a number of areas, such as a person's work ethic, how much they are willing to save, their desire to keep fit, and more. You will rarely learn this from your peers, and school puts almost no focus on this (beyond the technical elements).
To dismiss this out of hand is a clear indicator that no thought has been put into this topic.
Note the phrase "most advanced". I don't know if Prussia qualified.
There's also the issue of then and now. Holding onto a century-plus system with no regard of advances elsewhere is bound to have a huge number of flaws.
Exactly which crime did the programmer from Elcomsoft commit in the United States? He did his job in Russia, breaking "encryption" on software that was produced in the U.S. (which should have no bearing whatsoever). Yet he was arrested for those "crimes", and had to go through trial (with various twists and turns after that). All for stuff which was perfectly legal where he did it.
Canada has similar laws, but only regarding their citizens. If a Canadian is found to have sex with a minor in a foreign country, they can be charged in Canada. On the plus side, they only inflict this absurdity on their own citizens. So Canadians only have to worry about three sets of laws at a given time - Canadian, American, and the local laws of wherever they are. And hope they never contradict.
[rant]
Let's be honest. Humans aren't really expensive, or fragile. They're self-repairing, have long work cycles, low-maintenance, self-replicating, energy-efficient, highly adaptable, and capable of innovation. We also have a huge supply, and the capability to compensate for our shortcomings, with preparation. The only things robots currently have over people is cheap and precise reproduction, and precise and repeatable actions. But it doesn't take much to ruin a robot, get some grit in a high-precision joint, and guess what it takes to fix it? Manned service or replacement. Last time I heard, we don't currently have the technology to build the pyramids, yet manpower did it really well three times over (and not quite as well a few other times).
[/rant]
Now I understand perfectly well that there is an intangible value in humans, which is much higher than either the tangible or intangible value of our current robots. I'm also aware that that intrinsic value has been ignored in the past to make great achievements, tainting them in the process. But accepting that in many cases, humans are the best tool for the job, and accepting and honouring those who wish to volunteer, and risk their lives, to further our goals is not a bad thing.
Other than that, I agree with pretty much everything you said.
And at night, when the tank cools down, you can generate energy again, from the air going in the opposite direction. This system generates energy in much the same way as a stirling engine does - moving heat to generate kinetic energy vs. moving air to generate electric energy.
I haven't read the article (I'm not that new here), but if there was an issue with the direction of flow, a simple system with 2 bi-directional valves and a little extra pipe could guarantee the gas flowed in a given direction that section of pipe, regardless of which tank was the source and which was the destination.
One of the biggest flaws of open source is that a boycott can't be easily accomplished. Unless the product you're providing is big enough to have name recognition (MySQL), but not so big that there are multiple implementations (Linux), the odds are that someone will provide the proprietary codec, if possible. This is what the consumer wants (variety, choice), even if it isn't best for them (some degree of loss of rights). And if it isn't possible to include the codec, it's not much of a boycott.
I'll translate for the business crowd...
"A CEO would have to be stupid to use local resources (expecially in this situation)."
Notig that women are different than men is not prejudice. It is not prejudice (or, more correctly, discrimination) for me to say that North American aboriginals are likelier to become alcoholics than the general population. It is not discrimination to say the men are generally stronger than women. And it's not discrimination to say that women are generally more empathic than men. So why would it be surprising if someone cautioned any North American aboriginal against drinking (until a test is made to determine alcoholism susecptibility), or wrong to require female firefighters to meet the same standards as men, or to be surprised that women in a management role would be more able to identify with their staff, and have a better insight into their needs.
Not surprisingly, all the above are generalisations, and doubtless have exceptions. Although I haven't met an aboriginal who holds his liquor well, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some (I know aboriginals, just none who drink that I wouldn't classify as alcoholic). Certainly I've met women who are stronger than your typical male (and the olympics are a great oppotunity to learn of more), as well as men who are weaker than the typical woman. And I've also seen the same thing wrt to empathy. Which still does nothing to change what statistics will show.
Okay, just so we're all clear. Computer programmers are smart, but insensitive. This also applies to some MS computer programmers.
And there's the crux of the argument. If something is so good, people will pay to have a high-grade copy for their personal collection and further enjoyment. The key word in the above statement, which the media creators well know, is good. This is clearly what scares them. If they could have free advertising (a major expense nowadays) for their product, and a fair expectation of consumer buy-in, why would they resist it. The only reasonable answer I've been able to find is that they want to sell us crap. Crap is always easier to make, no matter how hard we think they must try to ruin a good concept. But if everyone can know it's crap, they lose even on the smaller amount they spend to produce that crap. Hence, every effort is made to hide the fact that the product is crap, such as the advertising for Toys and Gigli. If we can view the product before purchasing it (and this is especially true for movies, where the initial sale is behind closed doors) we may not pay for the subpar material that is produced, raising the bar, and the effort, for the media creators.
And who really likes it when they are told that their job just got harder, with probably the same payout?
Well, like the Good Book says, it's all been done before. What it doesn't say is, MS makes it easy.
And the obligatory...
... you know ... for the first time.
It's like telling somebody to remove all contraceptives before
Given the audience, no, they probably don't.